cakewalk

Just out of the oven. Have to go out now, so I won't be cutting into it until later. Looks and smells good, and certainly couldn't be easier to put together. More later.

Well, it is currently in the loaf pan rising (I hope). Will keep you posted. Thank you! BTW -- to reference another thread, I think this bread will be perfect for peanut butter and banana sandwiches. (Among other things.)

and a quiet old lady whispering "hush"

I've never heard of brown bread flour. Regular bread flour is higher protein than regular white flour. Is brown bread flour different than regular whole wheat flour? Nutty wheat flour is also a new one, but I just read something that said it is regular flour (presumably white?) with 20% wheat bran added to it. But I'd be interested in knowing your proportions and then I could play around with different flours. Thank you.

@JohnT, that looks like a nice looking loaf, I like the texture. Interesting that it remained mostly flat, it looks like a Pullman loaf even though you didn't use a lid!

Are you saying that if someone buys soft drinks, they don't actually need assistance? Or are you saying that since you are poor and you make certain choices, ergo everyone else who is poor must make those same choices? Maybe everyone who receives assistance should be forced to go shopping with an armed guard who ensures that the "appropriate" food choices are made. Really.

No photo, but I made Flo Braker's buttermilk cake the other day for the first time in quite a while. It has always been my favorite cake, and it's still got what it takes. It is hands down the most moist and flavorful cake ever. It needs no adornment. I have served it with whipped cream and lemon curd and berries and what have you. Those are all very nice, of course, but the cake itself is what really shines.

Who knew? http://www.acsilver.co.uk/acsnews/2016/07/07/what-are-grape-shears/

I would wrap and freeze the chicken - plastic wrap, foil, then into a zip lock bag. The veggies are another story, they might not do so well in the freezer. But I'd try it anyway, maybe later they can be used to make some roasted vegetable stock.

Those biscuits look amazing. (It all looks amazing, but my eyes tend to gravitate to the baked goods no matter what else is on the table.)

I know I can Google it, but I'd rather hear your description of what these are. I've never heard of them. (Thank you!)

We've had knock-down drag-outs on eGullet over "no yeast!"

Well I don't blame them!! They don't want you to say "cook for 37 3/4 minutes." Recipes are guidelines, not exact prescriptions, but the guidelines should be there. "Cook until nicely browned, that might take anywhere from a half hour to 45 minutes, you have to check it." I think any recipe that left out instructions like that would be lacking. I've read plenty of recipes that do actually say "cook until done" with no further elaboration. And I would call that a bad recipe. Takes things very far from the need for greater specificity mentioned above.

No, not in this thread, certainly not in your posts. Just commenting on a general trend that has become very popular, and that this thread reminded me of. But it is far afield.

I entirely agree about specificity. It just seems that most people are arguing in the other direction - abandon recipes! never use a recipe again! - they cry. I've never been keen on that trend. (But I'm more interested in baking than in cooking, and I think recipes hold a very different place for each thing.) I guess the thing is to cook (and bake) a lot, again and again. Follow the recipe, change what you don't like, learn how ingredients behave (or misbehave). That's how we develop those instincts - which we then ignore because the recipe said so!

But do you think your recipe needed adapting in order to account for differences in ingredients used, etc., which every recipe might need, as Pepin (and many others) have long pointed out? Or do you think it was just a bad recipe? There is a difference. Or, given the attention that is needed for the differences that abound, is there even such thing as a "bad recipe"? Perhaps your recipe worked for the author, but didn't work for you because you followed it too precisely? Instinctively feeling that a recipe won't work is one thing, and I suppose we've all been there and trusted the recipe rather than our instincts. But Pepin's point is that it's not the recipe. You seem to be saying that in your case, it is the recipe. Pepin's recipe was a good one, but he's saying that even with his good recipe, if he hadn't made certain changes in particular instances, it would have turned out badly. He's calling our attention to the fact that good recipes sometimes do not work because we're not paying attention to the fact that we can never "step into the same river twice," so to speak. So I guess the question here is, is there such thing as a bad recipe at all? I think instinctively most of us would say yes. It seems to be what you are saying regarding your recipe. But Pepin seems to be saying something else.

David Leibovitz had a post the other day about sbrisolona, so I decided I would have to bring that on New Year's Day. But I used Gina DePalma's recipe rather than his. The recipes are so different you'd think they were two entirely different things. It's in the oven now.

Lovely, all three of those desserts. I was particularly taken with the ginger pie so I clicked on your link. I really had to laugh - I had seen that about a year or so ago and bookmarked it, then completely forgot about it! So I will take this as a sign that I have to try that recipe. Yours looks stunning. (I was very impressed with that website and sorry that he had already stopped posting by the time I found it. And I've seen Harold & Maude several times, but never noticed the ginger pie.)

Peanut butter and banana sandwiches happen to be very good. (Never tried them with bacon.) They're not much different than peanut butter and jelly. They were pretty standard during the seventies, on good whole grain bread, with a thin drizzle of honey. I still get a craving for one once in a while.

That looks and sounds beautiful. Any chance we can get an inside peek?

Your slices look beautiful. I like the idea of wax paper between the slices, I usually just wrap the whole loaf in a plastic bag and hope for the best. ;> It's usually okay.

We seem to be in bread-baking mode. I also pre-slice and freeze bread. Today it was a whole-wheat Pullman loaf.

I'm not sure I'd want to eat anything called "bird funk." I have no idea what it is, and it may be delicious, but I think it needs a new name!

Not meaning to speak for oli, but I'm guessing it's a marjolane. Very nice, too. Can you show us a cross section? I made one only once, and liked it a lot. Keep meaning to make it again, but so far haven't.

I moved back to the States 20 years ago, and my last visit to Israel was about six years ago, so I can't say with any accuracy what's still around in Jerusalem. Except for Sima's! Friends of mind were there this summer and they mentioned that they went to Sima's and I couldn't believe that they were still open, but there you go. It's on Rechov Agrippas, a bit outside Machane Yehuda. They are very good, and they're open very late. It is a completely no-frills place, but good food. I used to love a particular place near Machane Yehuda called HaShipudia (there are hundreds of restaurants with that name, of course), it was a bit more "upscale" than Sima's and they had a stone oven where they made fresh pitot all day. They had the most wonderful marak kube, I can still taste it. But I have no idea if they're still there. There used to be a great place across from Kikar Zion, I don't remember the name of it, but every inch of wall space was filled with pictures of Elvis Presley. We just called the place "Elvis's." They've been gone a long time. There are a lot of new places, particularly within Machane Yehuda itself. I'm not familiar with Acramawi, I will look for it next time I go, I'm long overdue for a visit. (I figured you were a moshavnik.)